So we went to Venice for the third time. And verily it was good.

Our journey out was relatively leisurely until our transfer at Stanstead. Worth noting is that they say that your bags will take a maximum of 40 mins to appear and that flights in Stanstead close 40 minutes before departure. Allowing for time taken to schlep your stuff to the check in counter and queue there I'd say you'd want to be waiting for your bags with at least an hour and a half to go 'till take off.

Anyway, we were panicking a bit because our flight had been delayed a bit and there was no sign of our bags and we were dividing up the passports and preparing to split (me and kids to Venice, Sally waiting for bags) when the bags appeared and we sprinted over to check in and made it with about five minutes to spare.

Others going to the wedding were not so lucky, in that their luggage ended up in Oslo. Also worth noting is that when a helpful person closes one flight (the Oslo in this case) and offers to check you in for your flight, check the tags on the luggage!

Our apartment was grandy. Nice garden and a pool (which I didn't think was possible in Venice). Others found similarly marvellous places to stay and I find it incredible that given the space that the city has to work with, there are spacious places to stay. Although we were reminded by a woman on the bus (politely, it has to be said), that it's people like us that make it impossible for locals to get an apartment.

The forecasted thunderstorms did not materialise -- at least not in any manner that inconvenienced anyone -- but the mosquitos had a ball. Sally had one bite on her hand which swelled up enough to make her go to the pharmacist for a remedy. He looked at her arm and compared the large bite with the small ones. Touching her swollen hand he said This one worm. Sally went very pale. The pharmacist touched one of her other bites. This one cold . Sally's colour returned. Happy in the knowledge that there wasn't some succubus living in her hand, she applied the cream supplied.

The wedding we were attending was split in to two parts. The civil ceremony at the registry office at 1pm and the slap up feed on Torchello at six. Paddy fell asleep on the way to the registry office so I sat through the whole thing in a puddle of sweat as I held him on my chest. After the bilingual ceremony some of us went back to the apartment for a swim and a relax.

The evening do was great. I'm really fond of all (most of) those that were there and by the end of the night I was very (tired and) emotional. The return journey was a bit fraught as Paddy was so tired he threw a complete wobbler and could not be consoled.

The rest of the time was very relaxed. Gentle sight-seeing and walking and swimming in our pool. It was nice to be on holidays and have friends around for dinner and such.

Due to the biting, we took to sleeping with the windows closed and the fans going full speed. One night was so hot that after I prodded the archaic air conditioning unit (which was not working) I kept feeling the radiators, half convinced that I had somehow turned on the heating.

We had arrived in Treviso, but we flew out of Marco Polo and as we looked out the airplane window at the lagoon and the city shrinking below us, we all felt that one week was too short. We'd go back in a heartbeat.